It's unclear to me who the speaker is, unless it's you yourself, speaking to the readers. That makes the paragraph feel self-conscious, perhaps artificial.
I picture Madden talking to someone candidly.
"Heck yeah, I'm a rude smart aleck. Where do you think my name came from? Seriously though, with most people, I like to poke them a bit, see what they're like, how they deal with it. Maybe it's a little defensive too, because as long as they're dealing with a poke, they aren't going to be thinking 'Look at the cute widdle fuzzywuzzy bunny'. And it's fun. I don't like to get all stiff and formal with my friends."
"With Kildare, I mean it in a good way. Honest. He's got flaws, everyone does, but if I didn't toughen him up on them, he'd just curl up if someone mean took a swipe at him for real. He takes things too personally."
Okay, I probably didn't get Madden square on, and this is certainly longer than either of the paragraphs you gave.
As for the whole revision thing, I suspect the odds are pretty low that Joe Average Writer has a perfect writing style straight off the bat. This is to get Joe Writer to think about how he reads to someone else.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2003-06-26 05:15 pm (UTC)I picture Madden talking to someone candidly.
"Heck yeah, I'm a rude smart aleck. Where do you think my name came from? Seriously though, with most people, I like to poke them a bit, see what they're like, how they deal with it. Maybe it's a little defensive too, because as long as they're dealing with a poke, they aren't going to be thinking 'Look at the cute widdle fuzzywuzzy bunny'. And it's fun. I don't like to get all stiff and formal with my friends."
"With Kildare, I mean it in a good way. Honest. He's got flaws, everyone does, but if I didn't toughen him up on them, he'd just curl up if someone mean took a swipe at him for real. He takes things too personally."
Okay, I probably didn't get Madden square on, and this is certainly longer than either of the paragraphs you gave.
As for the whole revision thing, I suspect the odds are pretty low that Joe Average Writer has a perfect writing style straight off the bat. This is to get Joe Writer to think about how he reads to someone else.